If you love Harry Potter and want to make a version of Ginny Weasley's pygmy puff Arnold from Weasley Wizard Wheezes, then you have come to the right place. With just a few items from a craft store and about thirty minutes of free time, you can make a fluffy pygmy puff of your very own!

Steps

Method1

Small Version Without Styrofoam Ball

1

Gather your materials. These include:

Yarn (pink or purple traditionally, but you can make your pygmy puff any color you want)

Scissors

Googly eyes or paper and markers

Medium or large glue dots

Red or pink embroidery thread and plastic needle (optional)

2

Make the body of the pygmy puff. The looser you wrap the yarn, the fluffier and less dense it becomes. A medium density is best because the pygmy puff is firm enough to stand on its own but is still plush and soft. You will wad up some yarn to start, then continue to wrap the yarn around to build it up. Make sure that the pygmy puff looks circular; wrap the yarn repeatedly over an area that bulges to make it look more normal.

3

Add eyes to your pygmy puff. Choose the flattest side of your pygmy puff and make sure the pygmy puff can sit without falling over. Choose googly eyes that aren't too large or small. Attach to the face with glue dots roughly the size of the googly eyes. If you don't have googly eyes, draw eyes on a piece of paper, then cut out and attach. Draw the iris first (the colored part), then the pupil (black), and add a dot with a silver sharpie to imitate light reflecting off the eye. Attach to the pygmy puff with glue dots.

4

Add a tongue, if desired. Pygmy puffs have long, skinny tongues that they use to scavenge for food. You can make your tongue as short as 3 inches or as long as 8 inches. Cut your desired length from either red or pink embroidery thread and make a large knot on one end. Thread the other end through a plastic needle. Push the needle through the center of the pygmy puff, making sure it comes out in a spot you like. Remove the needle from the thread and pull all of the embroidery thread through.

If the tongue is too long, shorten it. To retract the tongue, pull the knot in the back. To lengthen the tongue, pull the thread in the front.

Method2

Large Version With Styrofoam Ball

1

Get a styrofoam ball. You can find them in a variety of sizes at any craft store or even in the crafting section of a big-box store.[1]

You can choose any size styrofoam ball you want, but approximately three inches in diameter will make a good-sized pygmy puff to prop on your shoulder like Ginny’s.

2

Choose the body material. You have a couple different options for the fur. Whichever material you choose, you’ll be able to find much more variety in texture and color at a fabric store.

For a super fluffy, shaggy pygmy puff, choose a bulky fur-type yarn, which is often branded as Fun Fur. For a super soft, fuzzy but less shaggy version, pick a fluffy type of wool strips.

If you’re trying to make a pygmy puff just like from the books, then you should pick a shade of purple or pink, but realistically, you can make it whatever color you want.

3

Hot glue one end of the fur material to the styrofoam ball. This is especially necessary if you’re using the long strip of wool to make your pygmy puff.[2]

Once the hot glue has dried and one end of the material is firmly attached, you can start winding the material around the foam ball.[3] If you’re using yarn, you can simply wind tightly. If you’re using wool, you’ll need to add dabs of hot glue to the underside and press them to the ball to get it to stick.[4]

Turn the ball as you wind, moving it with every loop around.[5] Keep building up the material until you can no longer see the styrofoam peeking through the fur anywhere.

4

Glue the end to the ball. Once you have covered the foam ball completely, you can cut the yarn or wool and hot glue the end to the rest. Don’t worry if you can see the very end tip of the yarn or wool because you can cover this spot when you make the face for your pygmy puff.

5

Make the head. Pick a piece of felt in a lighter shade than you made the body—baby pink for a pink puff or lavender for a purple puff. Cut a 1.5” square out of it for the head. You’ll use this to form the shape of the head for your pygmy puff.[6]

Shape the felt for the head. You’ll need to use a bit of filling to give the head shape and make it retain the shape. Place something small and pliable, like a cotton ball, inside the piece of felt and wrap the felt around it.[7] #* If you wish, you can also take something small—such as cutting off the tip of a Q-tip—and you can hot glue one end to the cotton ball and the opposite end to the inside surface of the felt. This will help hold the head shape in place, and it will also form a small little muzzle for the nose and mouth.

Glue the head together. Once you’re happy with the shape of the head, hot glue the felt together at the back of the head.[8] You’ll probably be able to trim some excess felt away before you finish gluing.

6

Glue the eyes to the head. In the movies, Ginny’s pygmy puff has very beady black eyes, so you can simply use two small black dots of felt and hot glue them above the little nose muzzle you shaped in the face.

If you want the eyes to have a shinier look than that, you can easily find two small black beads at the craft store while picking up the rest of the supplies.[9]

If you want to make it sillier looking, you can simply use googly eyes from the craft store.[10]

7

Glue the head to the body. Use a decent amount of hot glue on the back of the head, and hold it in place against the body until it dries. If you were able to see the seam or any matting where you glued the end up the yarn or felt in place on the body, then make sure you attach the head over the seam.

You may also want to brush the fur out of the way before you attach the head; otherwise you can accidentally end up with sticky hot glue clumping the fur together.

8

Fluff your pygmy puff. When everything has dried, roll the little guy around in your hands and scruff up the fur to give it plenty of texture and body.

Community Q&A

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Tips

If you want one exactly like Ginny's pygmy puff Arnold, use purple yarn.

If you feel like your pygmy puff is a bit too scruffy—applies if you use the Fun Fur-style yarn mainly—then you can always use scissors to trim the fur down a tiny bit, especially so it doesn’t cover your pygmy puff’s face.

To make a little shoulder perch for your pygmy puff, you can easily use a small piece of two-sided tape. Just hold the edges of the fur as you remove the tape so that it doesn't rip out the fur.

Warnings

Be careful with the hot glue gun! The tip of the gun and the melted glue itself can both cause burns.

Things You'll Need

Small Version Without Styrofoam Ball

Yarn (pink or purple traditionally, but you can make your pygmy puff any color you want)